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Laura’s Story

When I first started thinking about what I wanted to do for a career I knew I wanted to work in law but never knew I’d be able to qualify as a Solicitor without going from school to university. It’s going to take longer but it will be a bigger achievement for me, and through my apprenticeship I’m being paid to get my degree!

Everyone thought I’d go University. It would have been natural to go and do a law degree, but I chose not to do it because of the expense and I wanted to live at home. I decided to be an administrative assistant in a law firm, and was quickly promoted to a legal assistant. I missed the learning side of work so I wanted to do an apprenticeship, and was successfully recruited as a legal apprentice at Kennedys. It’s a degree apprenticeship so I’m already three years ahead of my friends that went to Uni – I have a job!

At Kennedys, they don’t treat me as a tea maker. I get my own cases, and I’m involved in all the legal work. At first, I got to work on quite simple cases, but now I’m on high value cases worth 100s of thousands of pounds. They’re quite complicated but they trust me to do them and it’s a challenge I enjoy. I spend a lot of time on the telephone talking to the court or solicitors, I review legal documents and I write lots of letters to solicitors. The best thing is, I’m not just in the office, I even go to court and attend meetings.

When I compare myself to when I first started I’ve progressed so much - I definitely made the right decision not to go to University.

Everyone should do an apprenticeship or at least seriously consider it as an option; don’t rule it out. Look at all the options, the traditional route may not be the right one for you. If you’re thinking of going to University there might be firms out there that will fund you and you get to do a degree alongside working which is a better route. Anything that offers you a qualification is worth doing as it is the best of both worlds.